Here's a collection of vero (stripboard) and tagboard guitar and bass effect layouts that we have put together covering many classic and popular effects in growing numbers. Many of these have been posted on freestompboxes.org, so check that site out for great discussions on building your own effect pedals. Enjoy the builds and please also visit us on Facebook and Twitter

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Wednesday, 15 February 2012

PCB - DPDT Daughter Board with Millenium Bypass

(originally posted on freestompboxes.org)

I thought I'd share this little project with everyone as I'm sure a few other people would be interested in it. Just to paint the picture I really hate two things about building effects, firstly the clunky and sometimes unreliable 3PDT switches, and secondly (and most annoyingly) the offboard wiring. I reckon I'd have built considerably more if the thought of offboard wiring hadn't put me off doing something so many times. So here in the UK we have an online electronics supplier called Rapid Electronics and they sell some DPDT switches which have a much nicer action than the usual 3PDT, you literally only need to step on it lightly to switch over and there is no clunk, and as an added bonus they're really cheap and readily available:

They're currently £1.69 each if you buy 10 or more, but the price has gone up and I only paid about £1.12 each when I bought a stash a while ago.

I'd seen some of the daughter board layouts on here for the 3PDT which looked excellent, so I asked Eric (Mr G on FSB) if he'd mind doing one for a DPDT switch and with onboard millenium bypass components and the good man that he is, he happily obliged.

Here's the boards, and the first build I'm using them for:

The first thing that struck me was how much neater the thing ends up compared to my usual builds! :) The second thing that struck me is that offboard wiring really isn't an issue now, I actually enjoyed it for the first time ever. All the connections are there including separate ground connections for the input and output sockets which just makes it a breeze.

Anyway thanks Eric for the excellent layout and here's the PDF containing the PCB artwork for printing:

54 comments:

I don't make my own I'm afraid, I don't trust my kids not to drink a bottle of Ferric Chloride if they come across it, so I play safe, buy my PCBs and do everything else on vero or tagboard :o)For PCBs in quantity I'd use Futurlec who are very reasonably priced, for one offs I'd get one of the guys from FSB or DIYSB to do it for me.

Also, without sounding or coming across as a total kiss ass, (just would like to give a little back) If you ever need a single run of a particular board etching Mark, give me a shout, I'd be more than happy to etch it for you. It won't have the serigraphy or solder mask, just a basic board, but they function very well and I only live in north Wales so it would cost nothing to post it to you bud. Just my little way of saying thank you!

Yeah mate I know what you mean. I must say, this layout isn't mine, I found it at FSB about a month ago, but I built Harald Sabro's triple wreck & the two sound about the same, pretty effin mean! I don't have the Openhaus, but I'll certainly do some hunting mate. Email me your delivery address to blue_nose_kid@yahoo.com

I'm in my workshop tonight & I'll get this bad boy rockin' up for you. I'll include the schematic and obviously the board layout too.

Yes pretty much, but you can ignore the LED pole because that's dealt with by the daughterboard. The actual connections on the DPDT stomp are Input socket, output socket, FX input, FX output and control. Here's a vero for it:

I'm doing another bypass option at the moment which a few people may be interested in, which uses a momentary switch (SPST will do) an IC and a relay. I love the idea of controlling an effect with one of those big sturdy heavy duty momentary SPST stomps!

this was really interesting reading, same here, making the vero layout and put it in test setup is the funniest part, then comes the enclosure drilling, NOT fun.. and lastly but even worse.. doing the offboard wiring and soldering, takes ages! the millenium solution, is that "true bypass" as well or does it have any effect on the tone at all?regarding DPDT stomps, since i live in sweden it's always tricky to find suppliers that dosnt charge you a silly amount of money for shipping, when i once were doing alot of midi stuff i searched around for momentary switches and found these and ordered them since the shipping was basiclly nothing from them and the switches are really good priced! the switches are ALPHA ones, they also have the latching model.1.45 each! http://www.brimal.co.uk/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=eny_fly_brimal.tpl&product_id=319&category_id=360&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=2

been eager about learning to etch boards even tho i find vero quite fun to work with as well, guess this thing is a good choice for a first attempt at etching... damn, no i will need to put another order for etch supplies :p but now, im gonna box that plimsoul i told you about!

I made up quite few of these and bought 30 switches, sold my 3pdt switches and relaized that maybe it's not possible to use this if your going to put two effects in one box seperate from each other? How do i wire that up with these really?

jeez, done two of these now and none of them works, or well, atelast the led, havent been able to try it with sound. one is just stone dead and the otherone lights the led all the time even when pusing the switch. any ideas?

They are sensitive indeed, on of them worked before boxing it and was died after boxing haha. Solved now although! Will get some pics to you of the boxing i just made, features two of these, although cutted in the corners to fit haha.

Great post! This exactly what I've been looking for. I'm building a True bypass strip and would like to avoid using 3tdp switches. I also looked into relay switching, but it would make the price go up a lot.Can I get these boards for these switches from someone? Or maybe the layout in a format I can use to order from somewhere like futurlec ?I have no experience designing pcbs, but would like to get like 20 of these.Thank you!

hello,first of all congratulations to everyone contributing to this amazing corner in the web, it's really quality stuff! :)i've built 3 effect pedals till now and all work perfectly, but this is the first time trying the 2pdt switch with the millennium board. i have a tiny veroboard with everything connected like the schematic, the BS170 and a 1N4148. But the LED is always on and very faint compared to its really "on" state. i've got the board connected to the rest of the "bass fuzz" which already works, but pressing the switch makes no difference for the led. Any idea what i might be missing here? Thank you

Hi people, I have build the millennium bypass and integrated it to a Zvex Super Hard on but I still have the annoying pop. Please help maybe im connecting something wrong...Everything worh but the pop is sometimes loud :(

Since I know how to install that 1M pulldown resistor only if I make the connection with 3PDT I don't know where to put it when using 2PDT and millennium bypass...Can you please tell me what to do...Thanks in advance :)

I have used the SHO compact layout http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2013/02/zvex-super-hard-on-compact-layout.html and for my second project I'll use the updated version but for the second I'll wire 3PDT hopping that I won't have pop...By the way is there any difference in the tone?

That layout already has a pulldown resistor so adding another one won't do anything for you. It also has a pulldown resistor at the output so it isn't that either. All I could suggest is re-flowing your solder so you know all the joints are good, and if that doesn't help then you may need to start swapping caps to see if one of those is causing the problem.

Use the compact layout, that is the latest version I've done and includes pulldown resistors at input and output. The updated version was the second version layout I did and was for the new (at the time) SHO circuit, but it doesn't have the pulldown input resistor and so I'd opt for the compact layout which is the same circuit but with both pd resistors included

The LED is switched off when the gate of the mosfet sees the output resistance of the board, which are both connected during bypass. So there must be a problem with the switch, or the connection from switch lug 4 to gate, or maybe the mosfet itself.

What type of mosfet have you used? They are very susceptible to damage from static and so there is always the chance that they have been damaged. It would be pretty bad luck if the same had happened with both boards you have built though.

But this layout has been used by lots of people so we know it's OK, which means it's either a build problem, or a faulty/incorrect component, so you're going to have to go over it critically and see if there are any unwanted bridges or anything which could be causing problems.

Not unless you have another pedal you can test them in like a SHO. Bear in mind that the switching and LED are independent and so any problem with the LED doesn't explain why you would get noise in your effect. Have you tested the effect without the switch? The noise there would again point to the switch or a bad connection somewhere.

The Marshall 3005 Lead 12 was a mini-stack with a 12 watt solid state head made in England between 1988 and 1991. People claim it's a gr...

Note

Not all these layouts are verified and some are put together from unverified schematics. So if you have good luck, or bad luck for that matter, then please let me know by dropping a comment in the topic. Thanks.

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